Madmen, a Meatbun and a Magic Box
by Obsidian Buterfly
Summary: "I know what happened to your friend," he said. "The angels have her." Sakura is missing and the only person who can help Fai get her back is a madman in a blue box. (DW crossover)


**_A/N: This is probably gonna be a two-shot or a three-shot at most. I've taken some liberties with how the difference in time-streams of dimensions might affect the travelers but I hope you guys enjoy the final product. Drop me a review and tell me what you think. _**

Fai sat at the bar, nursing a drink in his hand as he discreetly scoped out his surroundings. Loud music blared around him but he didn't let that bother him much. He was there in search for a man that according to the information Fai had gathered, visited this place to meet up with a woman every other day at fifteen past eight at night. The purple-skinned bartender smiled at him as she refilled his glass, and Fai returned it with a flirtatious grin of his own. She giggled, slipping him a card before sauntering off to deal with the other customers. Taking a sip, he picked up the paper to read at the number scrawled on it in blocky lettering that passed as the language there.

He had lived a long and fulfilling life, a happy life, at that. He had seen places and wonders many couldn't even dream about. He had helped save worlds. Several times over the years, as he'd traveled with his companions in search of Sakura's feathers and then again as he traveled with them to find a way to bring back the clones. It had taken a long time, but in the end, they'd found a way.

They had been searching for several decades for a way to bring the clones back, but because they had been traveling with Mokona for so long, none of them remained attached to a single time-stream long enough for it to affect them properly. Even though they had no concrete way of measuring the time as they jumped from one dimension to another, they learned to keep track of it in relation to how much time passed in Clow.

After ten years of traveling, relative to Clow, Fai and the others had found an artifact in a long forgotten world in a long forgotten dimension that had the power they sought. The civilization that had once inhabited that world was long gone, but their technology remained, and Syaoran, with his vast knowledge of various cultures and their languages, managed to decipher the messages they'd left behind. It wasn't long after that that they resurrected the clones. With the final price paid with the resurrection of the clones, Syaoran was finally able to return to Clow for good, to stay with the girl who waited for him. Kurogane returned to Nihon and Fai… Fai was left with Mokona.

Shaking his head at the thought of what Kurogane might say to him had he been there, Fai slipped the card into his pocket. His sensitive hearing picked up the sound of the front doors sliding apart with a slight hiss and Fai chanced a glance in that direction. Noticing the man with spiky brown hairthat had stepped through, he immediately straightened up, noting the way the newcomer scanned his surroundings. Just as Fai's information had revealed, he wore a blue, pinstriped suit. The man wore a silly grin on his face as he crossed the floor to reach the purple-skinned bartender.

Fai gauged the man as he conversed with the bartender. The man handed the bartender a plastic card – the sort used for storing currency in that part of the galaxy— receiving a black pouchthat the bartender had pulled out from under the counter in return. The man let out a delighted shout, loudly thanking the woman for her efforts as he dug around inside his suit pocket to pull out a silver stick. It struck Fai a little odd when he held it over the bag, pressing something on its side so that the tip glowed a bright blue while the stick emitted a high-pitched whirring sound.

Fai fought off a grimace as the sound irritated his sensitive ears, but the man stopped almost immediately. Fai stayed where he was, calmly taking another gulp of the acrid drink as he watched the man stuff the stick and the bag inside his jacket. Surprisingly enough, the pouch produced no bulge in his pocket even though it contained something almost as big as a loaf of bread. Thanking the bartender, the man turned on his heels, returning the way he had come. Dropping a plastic card of his own to pay for the drink, Fai got to his feet, following the man outside. The man must have finally gotten whatever it was he had been visiting the bartender for, because he was supposed to have stayed for a lot longer.

During the course of their second journey, Fai had discovered something both astonishing and frightening at the same time. Mokona did not affect the rate at which they aged, could not affect the rate of their aging at all in fact. Traveling through dimensions might have pushed them away from reality and time and space in some ways, but in the end, they were all still connected to the worlds they spent the majority of their life in. The effect showed in how their personal time moved relative to time-streams of their home-worlds. Clow and Nihon had similar time-streams so the difference in how they grew old wasn't very noticeable for Kurogane or Syaoran, but for Fai, whose world no longer existed, it was something entirely different. Without Celes there to move forward in time, Fai's personal time-stream was frozen at the point of his home world's destruction. Unlike his friends, who could grow old and live and someday die, Fai was stuck.

The double doors slid apart with a small hiss as Fai stepped out on the street. The sky shimmered in a luminescent green color, the stars beyond it dancing and swimming in the ever-shifting night sky above the planet Sirenon. He looked around, catching sight of his target moving through the crowds somewhere to his right.

Fai was careful not to let the man notice his presence as he gave chase, knowing that his target was rumored to be one of the most dangerous people in the universe.

The man took a sharp turn into an alley, and Fai hurriedly ducked after him, calling on his vampire sight to get a better look around as he unsheathed his claws. Sensing movement somewhere to his right, he swiped outwards, claws stopping inches from his target's throat as the man brought up his whirring silver stick to point at Fai. Fai grunted from the pain that immediately assaulted his senses but he had long since learned to dismiss it.

"Oi oi, easy with those things, you're going to take my head off!" the man protested as he took a few steps backwards.

Ignoring the remark, Fai moved closer again, baring his fangs as he did, though the man did not seem surprised to see them. If anything, he appeared a little puzzled and somewhat interested in Fai's appearance as he shut off the whirring stick.

"A homo-vampirius," the man said, narrowing his eyes, "distantly related to the Plasmavores, but lacking their shape-shifting abilities. A bit far from home though, aren't you?"

"I don't have a home to return to," Fai replied in an even tone, feeling a slight twinge of irritation at the fact that the man didn't seem intimidated by him at all. Maybe he was as dangerous as the rumors made him out to be.

"I'm sorry," he said, appearing genuinely saddened by Fai's callous response much to the vampire's astonishment. He seemed to age several decades in the span of a few seconds, though he snapped back to looking affronted as he continued. "What are you coming after me for? I didn't even do anything to you. I'm the wrong species to be your prey, as I'm sure you can already tell. My blood isn't even appealing to you."

Despite his human appearance, Fai knew he was most definitely an alien. He could hear two strong hearts pumping blood through the man's veins, and just as he had said, his blood had something in it that made it cloyingly sweet and bitter at the same time. Which wasn't an appetizing combination for a vampire.

"Why did you kidnap them?" he hissed, pulling aback his lips in a manner similar to Kurogane's as he took another step closer.

"What?"

"According to my sources you arrived three weeks ago, exactly as long as people have been going missing around these parts of the town."

"What?"

"Don't play dumb. You know exactly what I'm talking about."

"What?"

"I've been trying to track the one who kidnapped them. One of the missing people is a friend of mine."

"I'm sorry about your friend, but wait a minute, back up, and— honestly, what? What makes you think that I'm the kidnapper?"

"I've seen you snooping around gardens where they all vanished."

"The gardens?" The man seemed taken aback for a moment before smacking his forehead, ducking under Fai's extended claws as he began to scratch the back of his head. "Of course! I can't believe how stupid I've been. It's in the gardens!" He whirled around, flashing Fai a triumphant grin before pacing around the alley. "How could I have missed something that obvious? No, but wait a minute, wait a minute, I've been going there for three weeks, why didn't it come after me? Or you…" He stopped pacing to give Fai a curious look.

"What are you talking about?" Fai growled, unable to push aside the worry he felt for Sakura, who was the Sirenonian version of the princess from Clow. A few months ago, he'd stopped by the cozy little bakery she owned to buy breakfast. He'd seen her flitting about behind the counter as she dealt with her customers and Fai had frozen in place. It had been so long since he'd last seen her that he decided to stop there for a little while. Being unable to age himself, Fai had watched his companions grow old in their respective worlds. Syaoran and the clones had a place with Sakura in Clow and Kurogane had a home in Nihon. They had all offered him a place to stay with them, but it was hard for Fai to watch them wither away while he stayed the same so he took up traveling with Mokona, once again running from the thing he couldn't change.

That had been a long time ago. Now, he was alone with only Mokona for company, though the dimension hopper was affected by the passage of time as well. It showed in how long it took the creature to gather the energy for a dimensional jump, though the stays in those worlds were usually made bearable by the fact that he almost always came across an alternate version of his friends. For Sirenon, it was Sakura.

"It's the angels!" the man declared, eyes a little wild though his expression was one of glee. "I wasn't sure if it was them or not. It's not that hard to tell, _usually_ but I've been a little distracted lately, I wasn't paying attention. Never mind that though, I'm sure I saw one in the garden today."

Fai remembered seeing a stone statue of an angel in the gardens a few days ago, though what the man seemed to be saying bordered on ridiculous. In all his travels, he had only once come across a legend similar to what he was hearing. Syaoran had mentioned something about a lonely race of living statues that killed people in order to live. Kurogane had scoffed and dismissed it as a fairytale but… He had seen the statues in the garden shift places every now and then. He'd attributed that to the garden's semi-mechanical design, but …

"You're saying that a statue took all those people?" Fai quirked a brow.

_It's possible that the legend is true but I have to be sure._

"I never said it was a statue." The man held up a finger, grinning widely, though Fai couldn't see the reason behind his joy. "It's a weeping angel."

"A lonely assassin?"

"So you know what those are. Brilliant!" he clapped his hands together before holding it out for a shake. "I'm the Doctor by the way. Who might you be?"

"Fai D. Flourite. Doctor _who_?" he asked, withdrawing his claws before shaking the man's hand.

"Just the Doctor," the man replied before turning on his heels and resuming his pacing around the alley. "Right, so there are angels in the gardens and they're taking people, though not everyone who goes there winds up missing. It's possible they only attack people who are by themselves, but something tells me that's not the case. So how are they picking their victims? Seventeen people missing in three weeks. What do they have in common? Think think think. All different species, different ages."

"Why were you in the gardens, Doctor?" Fai asked, crossing his arms as he interrupted the man's rambling.

"The gardens?" The man stopped pacing to look at Fai as though he'd only just realized he was still there. "Oh right, well you see, the TARDIS brought me here instead of taking me to Arcateen V, home of the butterfly people. Nice lot, that one. So anyway, I tried to get her to take me there, but she's sulking for some reason. And then I noticed the disappearances so I decided to investigate that while she throws her tantrum."

"Who's Tardis?"

"My ship. She's in the gardens and—" The man froze for a moment, staring at something behind Fai. Holding up his hands in a gesture that was supposed to be calming, he began to slowly back away. "Fai D. Flourite, I need you to slowly turn around and step towards me."

"What?" He cocked his head to one side.

"Turn around and move towards me," the Doctor repeated,, beckoning him over with one hand. "And whatever you do, don't blink."

_They can move faster than you can blink. Blink and you're dead. _Fai stiffened as the part of the legend regarding the angels' speed sprung to the forefront of his mind. But instead of turning around like the Doctor had instructed, his gaze settled on a stone statue three feet behind the Doctor that certainly hadn't been there a second ago. And the Doctor was moving right towards its outstretched clawed hands.

"Doctor, don't move."

The man froze in his footsteps only a foot away from the gruesome angel. Its wings were spread behind its back in a manner that made it impossible to move around it to escape into the street without touching it and Fai was certain the angel behind him was probably frozen in a similar pose.

"They've blocked off the exits." The Doctor groaned in exasperation. "Clever monsters. I turn around and you're dead. You turn around and I'm dead. Great. Just great. Make sure you keep your eyes on the angel, Fai, and whatever you do, don't blink," he reminded Fai, keeping his eyes fixed at a point above Fai's left shoulder, "No need to panic though. Give me a moment, and I'll think of something to get us out."

"They remain frozen as long as we're looking at them, correct?"

"Right. Just make sure not to look directly into its eyes."

Fai immediately slammed his gaze to the angel's fangs. His eyes watered from the effort of keeping them open, though he tried his best to resist the urge to blink. The Doctor stepped closer to Fai, moving away from the angel's outstretched claws, and Fai decided to do the same by putting some distance between himself and the creature behind him. Light spilled into the alley from the streets on both sides. To Fai's rising trepidation they began to dim as seconds ticked by. He strained to keep his gaze settled on the angel. The lights flickered, plunging the alley in complete darkness for a fraction of a second before turning back on, and Fai noticed to his horror that the angel had moved close enough to nearly touch the back of the Doctor's head. A shudder went down his spine, alerting him to the presence of the angel behind him. The light began to dim once more.

_We're dead if it goes out again._

Realizing he didn't have any other option, Fai called on his magic, feeling the familiar thrum of power crackle under his skin as he held up the forefingers of his right hand. Picturing the tiny apartment he shared with Mokona across the city, he traced out the transportation spell in the air, encircling the Doctor in a similar spell. Ignoring the man's surprised yelp, he activated the spell and felt the darkened space of the alley compress around his body for a fraction of a second before the sensation vanished. He blinked, sighing in relief when the familiar wall of his kitchen greeted his vision.

"A teleporting vampire?" the Doctor sputtered somewhere to his right. "I've never come across a species like yours." He pulled out the whirring stick from his pocket to point it in Fai's direction once more. Making an irritated noise, he slapped the stick against his palm a couple of times before holding it up to his eyes as he scrunched his face in a comical expression. "This doesn't make sense." He pointed the stick at Fai for a second time, though Fai quickly pushed it out of his face before the Doctor had a chance to activate it.

"Can you not do that please? It's giving me a headache."

"Fai, you're back!" Mokona chose that moment to bound into the kitchen, bouncing off the floor to land in Fai's arms. Drops of tears gathered at the edges of its squinted eyes as it looked up at Fai with a worried expression. "Did Fai find Sakura?"

"I'm sorry Mokona, I couldn't find her," he replied, guilt gnawing at his insides when Mokona's ears drooped in disappointment.

"Did you just say Mokona?" the Doctor spoke up, cautiously approaching the dimension hopper with a strange look on his face as though he couldn't believe what he was seeing. The man had one of the most animated faces Fai had come across in a long time, but he could tell that the Doctor hid something terrible behind his childish mask. The man tried to keep it concealed but Fai could recognize the darkness lingering in eyes that were far too old for a face that young. In more way than one, the Doctor reminded Fai of the way he used to be a long time ago.

"You must be Yuuko Ichihara's Mokona." The Doctor grinned, plucking Mokona from Fai's arm as he brought it level with his face, "So she did succeed in the end. Oh that clever, clever witch. Tell me, did that lazy old Clow help her at all? How are they? I haven't gone to see them in ages. Oh, it has been a long time, hasn't it? Gotta remember to bring her a present the next time I visit. She slaps very hard for a lady." He rubbed his cheek as though trying to ward off the memory of her last slap. Only a second later, he was giving Mokona an expectant look, a slightly hopeful expression plastered on his face.

Mokona fidgeted under the doctor's gaze and Fai decided to intervene on the dimension hopper's behalf.

"How did you know Yuuko, Doctor?"

"I'm an old friend of hers," he said, gently setting Mokona down on the countertop. "We used to play poker together. She's surprisingly good." As the man began to ramble on again, Fai wondered if that was something of a habit for the Doctor, or if he just really liked to hear himself talk. "I owe her three of the most expensive liquor bottles in this galaxy for last time. Word of advice:" he walked over to Fai, standing on his toes to whisper in his ear as though telling a great secret, "never bet on anything with that woman." He waited until Fai looked at him before continuing with a small pat on his shoulder. "She always wins."

"Yuuko-san has been dead for several hundred years, Doctor," Fai said in an even tone, keeping his gaze fixed on the man's face for his reaction.

The Doctor stiffened, staring at the two of them in shock for a brief moment before his shoulders slumped as he turned away.

"I see." He sighed, all energy drained from his voice as he pulled up a kitchen chair to sit down. "I… I'm sorry. I didn't realize how much time had gone by since I last saw her. I guess I really did get sidetracked with all the 'sightseeing' as she'd have put it." He smiled nostalgically, falling silent as he stared off into space. Five seconds later, he was back on his feet, "How do you know her? No wait, wrong question. Did you know her? I'm certain you got Mokona from the shop, but is it still there? Did she have a successor lined up to take over or something? How old are you anyway? It's very hard to tell with your species."

"Kimihiro Watanuki runs that shop now," Fai replied, bemused by the way the Doctor's mind seemed to jump all over the place. The man could never stay settled on one emotion long enough. Although he had only just met the Doctor, judging from the way the latter kept talking and moving around, Fai could tell it was hard for the man to stay still. He wondered what would happen to him if someone were to tie him up and put tape over his mouth. "Yuuko-san granted a wish of mine so you can say I'm a lot older than I look. As for how old that might be, I'm actually not so sure anymore. I stopped keeping track of the years after I hit five hundred, I think."

"Five hundred? How can you be over five hundred years old?" the Doctor exclaimed, his voice going shrill by the end. "I'd have put you closer to two hundred with those looks. And even that's stretching the limits. You look too… young to be five hundred. Even the direct descendants of the great vampires turned into these wrinkly, leathery monsters by that age. You're not immortal because you're not a fact. You'd have had this weird spacey twisty wrongness about you if you were, which you don't so you're not. So I'll ask again, how can you be over five hundred?"

"That's a rather long story, Doctor," Fai replied, fighting off a smirk at the irritation that flashed across the man's face. The Doctor appeared to dislike not knowing things. "One that, unfortunately, I don't have the time to tell right now. You see, a close friend of mine went to the gardens about a week ago and no one has heard from her since then. I'm somewhat busy trying to find what happened to her."

"A week ago in the gardens?"

"Does the Doctor know where Sakura is?" Mokona asked.

"I may have an idea of what happened to your friend." He nodded. "The angels took her."

"She's dead?" Mokona cried not realizing the significance of the Doctor's words, though Fai felt a cold wave travel down his spine as realization struck him.

"Doctor, what exactly do the angels do to their victims?"

"The angels are psychopaths," he replied. "The nicest ones you'll probably ever meet in the universe, but psychopaths all the same. And they feed on the potential time energy of a person."

"What does that mean?"

"It means that they send their victims to the past and let them live to their death in the past long before they were born. And all those days that their victim could have lived in the present become the food for the angels."

"So Sakura is already dead in the past?" Mokona wailed. Fai felt icy claws digging into his chest at the thought of having lost his one and only princess only months after he had found her again. Even if she wasn't the girl he had sworn his loyalty to, all those lifetimes ago, she was still Sakura; still the sweet girl that looked past all his faults and lies and masks and chose to believe in him when even he himself couldn't believe. Living as long as he had, he knew his days with his companions' reincarnations were always limited but this was just… too soon.

"Not quite." The Doctor held up a finger and Fai felt a small flare of hope. "You see, it's all a big wibbly wobbly timey whimey mess. The past present and the future I mean. Nothing is set in stone. Well I say set in stone, it's more like, playdough. Unless of course it's a fixed point in history, then it's probably set in concrete. Oh. Incidentally, did you know that concrete wasn't actually invented by the humans but imported by the Concornians of planet Concrass from the constellation Concrane in the Crab Nebula?"

"I know that history can be changed," Fai snapped, irritation swallowing his tiny bubble of hope as he glared at the Doctor, "but rewinding time is a taboo. The price for a wish like that would be too much for anyone to pay and there's no other way to get her back if she's is already dead now."

"Whoever said anything about rewinding time? Are you trying to make all of reality and logic deteriorate and then implode?"

"How else am I supposed to get her back to the present?"

"By going to the past and bringing her along," the Doctor replied as though it were obvious.

"And you just happen to have a time-machine stashed away in the gardens that can take us to the past to get her back, do you?"

The Doctor looked as though his birthday had come early as he grinned at Fai and Mokona like a cat.

"That long story about how you can be over five hundred years old—" He rubbed the palms of his hands together and started for the door, moving as though he expected Fai and Mokona to follow. "—I'd love to hear about that when we're done."

"Done with what?" Mokona asked as it hopped after the Doctor. The Doctor whirled around to grin down at the dimension hopper.

"Done bringing your friend back to this time of course." The Doctor turned on his heel, once again moving towards the exit. "You'll have to tell me all about it after that, Fai D. Flourite."

"Are you saying you have a working time-machine that can help us save Sakura?"

"That's exactly what I'm saying." The Doctor declared as he threw the door open and marched outside. Catching Mokona as it hopped in Fai's arms, Fai hurriedly locked the door behind him as he raced after the man. "Of course we'll also have to figure out why the angels are here in the first place. And possibly think of a way to get rid of them in the process to make sure something like that doesn't happen again, while we're at it. Oh, do you think you could teleport us to that hidden alcove at the western end of the gardens? You know, the one with a lot of those carnivorous rose bushes planted right around the corner? It might be a good idea if we didn't walk all the way. If the angels came after me in the alley, they probably don't want me to make it back to the TARDIS if they can help it."

Fai traced out the runes around them as they stopped walking. The Doctor watched in fascination as the space twisted and bent around them before popping apart only a fraction of a second later to deposit them in the alcove. Fai blinked, taking in the sight of the blue box with the words Police Box plastered across its surface. Fai felt something powerful and _big_brush across the edges of his conscious mind, immediately putting him on the alert as he pulled up his mental defenses. A voiceless laughter echoed across his mind, a calming and friendly warmth flooding his senses for a moment before retreating. He shook his head, focusing back on the present to realize that the Doctor was once again rambling away as he fiddled with the double doors of the police box.

"Is that supposed to be your time-machine?" Fai struggled to fight off a frown as he realized that the source of the warmth was the blue box.

"This is my TARDIS. Time and Relative Dimension in Space. Isn't she a beauty?" The Doctor laughed, stroking the side of the door with pride before pushing them inside. Not even sparing a glance over his shoulder, he marched inside. "Come on inside, then. Let's get moving before the angels arrive. Dear Sakura is waiting. Allons-y!"

He could hear the man moving about, Mokona giggling in delight as it hopped over the threshold, exclaiming how it was bigger inside than it looked on the outside. Fai hesitated only for a moment before walking inside. Like the Doctor had just said, Sakura was waiting.


End file.
